Liverpool saga back in court to block Texas injunction

The battle for Liverpool Football Club will hit the High Court again this morning with the club’s board calling on Mr Justice Floyd to grant an anti-suit injunction.

The battle for Liverpool Football Club will hit the High Court again this morning with the club’s board calling on Mr Justice Floyd to grant an anti-suit injunction.

Overnight, the club’s current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett were awarded a temporary restraining order (TRO) by a Texan court, preventing the sale.

An anti-suit injunction granted in London would prevent the US owners from taking any further action to make the TRO permanent. If they were tocontinue proceedings were an anti-suit injunction granted, it would mean that the owners would be in breach of a High Court injunction.

This is the latest twist in the ongoing battle for ownership of the club. It is due to repay the Royal Bank of Scotland £237m tomorrow (15 October) or face administration.

Yesterday the High Court granted RBS a mandatory relief injunction forcing Hicks and Gillett to reconstitute the club’s board and allow it to be sold to US bidders New England Sport Ventures (NESV) (13 October 2010).

It is understood the pair will be back in court this morning along with One Essex court’s Lord Grabiner QC, representing the club’s board, in a bid to block the US TRO. If successful the injunction will be served to the Texan court this morning and the TRO dismissed.

US States vary widely in the matters they’ll take jurisdiction over. Texas has a notoriously broadly worded statute that allows it to take jurisdiction over suits which have little or no connection to the State. But blaming ‘America’ for this is as silly as using the Italian courts as an example of the speed and efficiency of ‘European’ justice.

Tom Hicks and George Gillet are partners in a company that owns a US based holding company that owns a British holding company that owns Liverpool Football Club and Athletics Grounds. It is the British holding company that is being required to sell Liverpool FC because the Bank it borrowed the money from want’s it’s money back.